


Things of the Past

by SilverRollu



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury, Near Death, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-23 07:19:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13185108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverRollu/pseuds/SilverRollu
Summary: A hunt gone wrong.Or;His skin is pallid and cold and his eyes are wide and he’s looking up aimlessly at the dark, dark sky.He can't let this happen.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stoven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stoven/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [my pal](https://twitter.com/HAL3arks) over on twitter! thank you!! (also you guys should go check them out. wink)

For all intents and purposes, it had been a beautiful night. For well over a week Lucis had been ravaged by rainstorms, the winds carrying it well past the skies of Duscae and onto other regions. It’d been regrettably warm and humid by day, become frigid and windy by the time the sun set. A week of this and everyone had been on edge; from stuffy noses and wild allergies, constantly getting stuck out during particularly nasty downpours, wet clothes and mud covered leather seats — it’d been hell. The four of them could unanimously agree.

And it is coming out of a surprisingly dry afternoon, to an even more surprisingly dry night, that makes Ignis wonder if the Gods were taking pity on them. It was damn near perfect after as arduous a week as they’ve had. Sure, the ground is still a little sticky from the recent rainfall, dirt giving way very easily under the soles of their shoes, and there’s still a certain dampness clinging to the air around them, but those are small details. Small details he will concede, just this once.

Ignis ignores the faint squelching noises the ground beneath him makes as he marches on. He makes the rear of their formation, with Gladio in front, Noctis and Prompto between the two of them. It is not the best thing they could have come up with, but it is currently the most effective. Gladio insists on preventing Noctis from rushing ahead, and thus has taken the lead. A daemon hunt is not something to rush headfirst into, and Noctis is particular is liable to find trouble in his desire to speed up the process. Noctis grumbles from behind Gladio, but quietly, because although the night air is calm without the constant turbulence of a storm, the sun is yet to come up for several hours, and he has a decent sense of self-preservation if nothing else.

Prompto sticks close to Noct. Ignis thinks that it’s for protection. It’s no secret that the man doesn’t care for their nightly outings, even considering the quite sizeable monetary reward they’d receive for a job well done. Prompto is a bit of a jumpy person, even more so when the night falls around them. He’s not close enough to breathe down Noctis’ neck, no, but he keeps a conversational distance, cracking jokes and receiving sarcastic quips in return. At every noise, like a small animal skittering along the forest floor or a twig being snapped underfoot, he twitches.

“How far is this thing?” Prompto asks, voice just this side of frustrated. The other side is more than likely apprehension.

Gladio makes a humming noise, probably his attempt at a shrug without actually shrugging. In this darkness, unless the beam of one of their flashlights is focused on him directly, they’d not see it at all.

When it becomes obvious enough that Gladio doesn’t actually have an answer, Ignis pipes. “We should be nearing the last place it was spotted.”

“The last place it was spotted, meaning… there’s a chance it won’t be there?”

“If this were your run of the mill daemon, yes. But this one has been consistently haunting the area for a while now.”

“Which means we’re not getting out of this fight,” Gladio adds. “Buck up, Prompto.”

“Psh, I’m already bucked up, my guy. I got plenty of bucks. Nothin’ but bucks.”

“Oh yes, we completely, totally, absolutely believe you. For sure.”

“Thank you for the genuine vote of confidence, Noct.”

“Of course.”

At the front of the line, for some reason unseen to Ignis, Gladio stops in his tracks. He only knows this because it causes the rest of the advance to halt, Noctis not too far from the front, Prompto not far behind him. Prompto begins to speak, his question rising up and subsequently dying on his lips when he finds his answer in the form of a deep, otherworldly growl. It’s a sound they all know a little too well, unfortunately; the rising grumble of a daemon, clawing its way into existence from whatever black, murky depths it originated from.

The moonlight filters in as best it can through the dense forest foliage. It is still, unsurprisingly, not enough to properly see the creature forming. Weapons are summoned and defensive stances are taken regardless, everyone waiting on bated breath for a clear view of their newest enemy. Ignis flexes his fingers over the handles of his daggers, testing his grip, eyes scanning the immediate vicinity. Daemons, while not necessarily creatures to travel in packs still tend to appear in numbers. At any moment, from any direction, they could have another threat. The knowledge sets his shoulders straight, the back of his neck tight with anticipation.

Their enemy fully manifests within moments; it starts as dark dust, a cloud of thick black smoke forming and snaking around the area. With it is the scent of burning, rotting flesh, the sound of fluttering cloth. Next there is what Ignis can only describe as an supernatural glow — sickly green flames rise from the smoke, bright enough to expand in the darkness around them, bouncing off trees and bringing to their attention the emaciated ruins in the near distance. On those flames form hands, and from those hands form the rest of the dameons.

Ignis could almost see the thing as human, if not for the fleshless skull staring back at him, or the rest of its equally dead body apparent underneath its large, fluttering robe. He assesses the monsters, at least three of them, while the rest of his party begins their approach. These are what the hunters were calling “necromancers.” Ignis can appreciate the apt name.

Gladio makes the first move. “Look alive,” he belts out, voice registering as nothing more than a thick growl, and throws his sword in front of him. He makes contact with his first swing, but the daemon phases away from his blade on the next attack, causing Gladio to take out a helpless chunk of dirt below him.

Noctis moves into the gap Gladio created, warping right up to the necromancer and throwing his sword into its face. He’s more successful than his shield at first, but still finds himself losing his footing. When the apparition disappears again.

The battle then begins to continue in a similar fashion. Prompto lays down cover fire as much as he can, covering for Gladio’s and Noctis’ straightforward attacks. Ignis spends his time looking for openings, dashing in with his lance whenever the timing seems acceptable. It’s a surprisingly hard balance to strike, however, with the daemons’ tendency to phase away leading for an increasingly frustrating, one-sided battle.

The necromancer also, as they quickly discover, does just as its namesake states, summoning smaller, skeleton-like daemons to the area. Within just ten minutes their simple hunting quest becomes a free-for-all, with the four of them giving their all just to keep up.

“Ignis!” Noctis’ voice sounds from somewhere in front of him. “Instructions!?”

Ignis can only get out a huff of a breath as he narrowly avoids the claws of a skeleton, throwing his lance into its skull as he flips away. Panting, he falls back on his heels and looks out toward the distance. The battlefield is a rush of bones, steel, and green flames. If it continues in this way they’ll be overwhelmed. Gladio’s brought out his shield at this point, trying to block while simultaneously bulldozing his way through the enemies. Prompto has switched up his pistol fro some sort of machinery, probably hoping the sheer amount of output it has can help keep the monsters at bay.

“Perhaps some magic can turn the tides!” Ignis throws out, finding Noctis’ face in the chaos and nodding towards him. He’s not quite sure yet if the necromancer has any sort of elemental weakness, but at the very least they can clean up some of these damn skeletons.

Noctis opens his mouth, probably to ask what he should try first, but instead his eyes widen and yells “Loo— Ignis!” 

He’s not sure if he’s ever turned around as swiftly as this before. Somehow, in the midst of the fighting, one of the necromancers phased from the other side of the field right to Ignis’ side. Ignis can feel his heart beating harshly in his ears as he looks straight into the daemon’s dark, empty eyes. It moved so fast and silently that Ignis doesn’t even have the time to lament letting his guard down.

Ignis watches the next few moments pass as if in slow motion. He hears Noctis’ and Gladio’s voices, thick with worry, like an echo from someplace else. The daemon’s spindly, bony fingers wiggle towards his throat in one fluid motion, the green flames still licking at the base of its hands. The scent of rotting flesh grows louder the closer the monster comes to Ignis, fluttering off of its cape, from the magic flowing off of its body. Rotting. Death.

A different hand — firm, alive — grips at his shoulder and pushes at him. Ignis, in his shock. Lets himself be pushed, sees the shock of blond hair moving to stand in front of him. Prompto doesn’t speak, so there’s no echo of his voice in Ignis’ ears, no warning, no reasoning.

  
When the spell breaks the necromancer’s fingers are around Prompto’s throat and Prompto is hovering off the ground, legs kicking as he’s deprived of air. Ignis has been pushed back hard enough that he’s fallen over, twisting his ankle against the wet dirt and ending on his side. Still, he doesn’t tear his eyes away. The daemon’s dark, dark eyes are now aglow with its ungodly magic, and its mouth is open and spitting red flames. Those flames touch Prompto’s skin, and like the cracks in a strip of concrete they break into his skin, alighting him in a sickly pink. And from the look on his face, the panic in his eyes, it must feel anything but good.

He doesn’t connect the loud, panicked voice as his until he finds his throat sore from it. Ignis yells for Prompto, starts dragging himself up from the dirt to run forward. He trips over the bones of a skeleton and find that he can barely keep his balance. His ankle doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t matter, though. He finds his lance in Noctis’ armiger, wraps his shaking — when did he start shaking? — fingers around it and uses the weapon as leverage to drag himself fully to his feet. And then he winds back and tosses it as hard as he can.

It crashes into the daemon and it drops Prompto in response, the blond flopping to the ground in an unmoving lump. The necromancer turns to look in Ignis’ direction, but at that moment, in a flash of blue light, Noctis barrels into it, pushing it back from his friends in an almost frenzied rush.

Ignis stumbles ahead. He drops to Prompto’s side within seconds, turning him over to get a good look. He’s not breathing. His skin is pallid and cold and his eyes are wide open and he’s not breathing. His wide eyes are looking up aimlessly at the dark, dark sky and Ignis can feel something choking in his chest.

He can’t let this happen.

Ignis begins to search his pockets, but is stopped when a different daemon runs into them. He covers Prompto with his body as the two of them are thrown forward by a pair of skeletons. THe attack takes the breath out of Ignis, and he barely makes a noise when he lands hard against a wall. Prompto lands on top of him. Ignis only has the presence of mind to right himself and hold onto Prompto tightly, trying to focus on the approaching enemies and not how cold and limp the body in his arms feels.

Gladio puts a stop to the daemons’ approach, appearing out of nowhere with a large, sweeping attack. Once he’s done he turns and yells something to Noctis that Ignis can’t pick up on. The cue must have been heard, however, because soon there’s a very sudden blinding light, and sparks manifest from the skies to rain down upon the field. The three of them are thankfully far enough away to not get his with Noctis’ magic, but from here Ignis can feel the waves of the electricity as it thrums to life in the air.

“Can you stand?” Gladio begins to lift the two of them up as he asks, and Ignis doesn’t bother shaking his head. His ankle is most certainly sprained but there’s nothing they can do now. He looks at Gladio, wanting to speak but finding his voice lost somewhere in the memory of arcane magic and blanking staring eyes. “Here, give him to me.”

He doesn’t want to relinquish his hold on Prompto, but his body does so without much fight. Gladio begins to run and Ignis follows, limping but moving as fast as possible. Somewhere behind him he hears the fresh crackling of lightning, and turns to see Noctis retreating at their rear, having thrown another magic spell for good measure.

They run for a while. Until they can no longer hear the chattering of skeletons or see the glowing lights of the necromancers in the distance, until they can see the bright lights of the parking spot they’d walked from getting closer. Before they get close enough Ignis stumbles into Gladio, hands immediately going to Prompto, worriedly running over his body.

“Here—” Noctis pulls a feather from his pocket. Gladio places Prompto down on the grass and mud, and the feather is placed in his hands. Its flame burns brightly.

“Shit,” Gladio starts, hulking over the three of them. “Is— is it still gonna work? Is he…”

“As long as it’s not too late,” Ignis says. His voice doesn’t feel like his own when he says that, and he doesn’t tear his eyes away from Prompto. If it’s not too late. If his own slight moment of weakness wasn’t enough to do the gunsman in permanently. If it’s not too late.

His eyes are closed now, probably from all the running. Ignis covers Prompto’s hands with his and closes his own eyes. 

“We shouldn’t have taken this hunt.” Noctis sounds weak and so, so far away. “Those things were so — fuck, I’m so sorry Prom. Fuck.”

Silence. It’s jarring compared to the chaos of battle from just a few moments ago. None of them move for a long time, imply watching as the phoenix down burns its way around Prompto’s pale skin, fighting against the daemon’s magic and searching for a miracle. Ignis isn’t the type of person who believes in miracles usually, but at this moment he finds himself wondering if saying one of the Astrals’ lost prayers will summon their blessings.

Ignis has seen so much death, has handled so much of it at his own hands. From Insomnia, to monsters on the field, the hunters, the unsettling horrors of Niflheim’s army. But never has one died for  _ him _ . He keeps replaying those slow moments over in his head, like a skipping record, and can only focus on Prompto’s silent approach and subsequent panicked struggle. Prompto put himself in that situation. He put himself in that situation for  _ Ignis _ . He couldn’t imagine someone would do such a thing for him.

Within the silence they hear a cough. It’s weak and wet and when Ignis opens his eyes Prompto’s head is thrown to the side, his mouth open and struggling to take in a solid breath. The sight causes Ignis to release the one he’d been holding. He grasps Prompto’s fingers tighter and sees that he’s shaking again.

They all wait for Prompto to come back to himself. He takes in a few wheezing breaths eventually, and as the color returns to his face he opens his eyes. And they dart around desperately.

“Ig—” Prompto says, coughs. “Iggy, you okay?”

Guilt twists in his throat. That’s the first thing he says? Asking for him?

“He’s okay, he’s good,” Noctis says from Prompto’s other side. “You were good out there, Prom.”

“He’s…”

“I’m here.” Ignis squeezes Prompto’s fingers and the man’s eyes finally seem to focus in on his. “My sincere thanks and more, Prompto.”

Prompto blinks rapidly, chest heaving. It seems the magic is still working its way through his body, from the way he’s barely moving. Ignis resolves to grab and elixir, finding that even the acute signs of pain on the blond’s face is simply unbearable at the moment. Before he can fish one out of his pocket Prompto smiles and Ignis himself stops breathing.

“It’s okay, it just… wouldn’t have been the same without ya, Ignis.”

There’s that rational bit in the back of Ignis’ mind that tells him what their next move should be. That they can’t stay here any longer, that the only way to be safe is to get back to their car and rush to the nearest haven. But between Prompto’s expression of selflessness and the stupid smile on his face, Ignis can’t really listen to it. He helps Prompto up off the cold, muddy ground slowly, watches as he blinks his mind back to full consciousness.

Prompto’s eyes — thankfully focuses, definitely seeing — stare up and Ignis follows his line of sight into the dark, dark sky, full of stars.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! My tumblr is over [here](http://leonmckennedy.tumblr.com) (where i usually post before transferring it over here) and my twitter is [here!](http://twitter.com/vanridgeway)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this one on a whim after finishing the main work. enjoy?

“Ignis.”

Ignis, despite earlier telling himself that he wouldn’t overreact, still ends up whipping around at the sound of Prompto’s voice. Prompto stands in the doorway to the bathroom, hair still wet despite already being fully dressed. He’s wiping a towel over his head lazily, eyes focused at a spot somewhere in the corner.

“Prompto.” Ignis places his cup down, rotates in his chair so that he can face the blond fully. WIth Gladio and Noctis deciding to take a different room, this is the first time the two of them have been alone together since the previous night. There’s a lot of things Ignis would like to say, but all of them fizzle out before they can form coherent sentences, so instead he ends up staring at the wall above Prompto. “How was your shower?”

“Good…” Prompto walks forward until his legs hit one of the beds, and then he flops down onto it. His towel flops with him, covering his face. “ _Great_ , actually, since we haven’t had a hotel room in days. I had mud in places you should never, _ever_ have mud in. Caravan showers just don’t cut it.”

Ignis makes an assenting noise, grabbing the handle of his coffee mug. He doesn’t pick it up, just fiddles with the handle. It’s silent for a few moments, before he takes in a steadying breath. “Prompto, I—”

“You don’t,” Prompto starts, and Ignis wishes he could see his face. “You don’t have to apologize. Or thank me, or whatever. Really, it was nothing.”

“It was your _life_. That is hardly ‘nothing’.”

Prompto shifts. He throws the towel away and faces Ignis fully. His hair is sticking up in all the wrong places, and his face is still slightly pink from the heat of his shower, but his expression is serious. “It’s okay, Iggy. You’ve done the same thing for Noctis plenty of times— hell, for Gladio too, and even for me. I’m okay with taking the bullet this time.”

Ignis frowns, guilt settling deep into his stomach. Sure, he’s done a few… reckless maneuvers, in attempts to keep everyone safe, but it certainly didn’t mean he needed to be repaid. He’d ask that of no one.

“Well, it would seem—”

“I know.” Prompto sits up straight, scratching the back of his head. “I got carried away. I know that it was touch and go for a second there, and that there was no guarantee you guys could bring me back but… I couldn’t stand the idea of letting you take that hit. I moved without thinking…”

Ignis clears his throat. “It would seem,” he begins again, “that I owe you more than a simple thanks.”

“Wh— huh?”

“I owe you a favor.” Ignis picks up his coffee mug again, if just to have something to do with his hands. “There’s not much one can do to repay a life, but I can certainly try.”

He takes a sip of his coffee. Prompto is still looking at Ignis with this sort of slack-jawed awe. He supposes Prompto was expecting more of a fight— perhaps a quick speech on how reckless he had been. To be fair, it’s a thought Ignis entertained for a moment, but only for a moment. The more he thinks about how selfless Prompto had been, his blank eyes, the look on his face when he came back to them and immediately asked for Ignis — he just can’t do it. The idea makes him upset, probably appropriately so.

A few moments pass where Prompto fiddles his his bare toes, staring a hole into the bedsheets and biting his lips. Eventually the blond looks up to him, smiling sheepishly. “A date.”

Ignis nearly chokes on his Ebony.

“It doesn’t have to be a _date_ date if you think that’s too weird, and like, I know this is already really, really weird but...  no, yeah, you can just forget I said anything—”

Ignis puts up one hand to still Prompto as he uses the other to pat at his chest. Once he has his breath sufficiently recovered, he looks at the man. Like, really looks. Prompto’s face is still pink but he’s under the assumption that it’s no longer the fault of a hot shower.

“W-well… a date.”

“Yeah...”

He clears his throat again and adjusts his glasses. “Okay. A promise is a promise.”

Prompto smiles, carefully at first. “Only if you’re sure.”

Ignis doesn’t have to think on it too long. It surprises him a bit, but his returning smile comes easy. “Of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my [tumblr](http://leonmckennedy.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://twitter.com/vanridgeway) again!


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